Let's Shake Things Up A Bit!

Ready, fire, aim

At today’s Barmbek Dialog in Deutsch I was introduced to the idiom Schieß los! Dict.cc offers “Get cracking,” “Fire away” (a bit more literal even as it is still being used metaphorically), “Go for it,” and “Hit me.” Pons gives the phrase Na, schieß schon/mal los! with the translations “Come on, out with it!” and “Come on tell me/us!” as well as natürlich, schieß los! – “of course, go ahead!” Duden gives three meanings for the full verb losschießen:

to open fire/to start shooting

to set something in motion quickly or suddenly; to pounce on someone or something

to begin to speak; to feel the urge or compulsion or need – aus einem innereren Bedürfnis heraus – to say something

Canoo.net offer mitteilen – “to inform” or “to let somebody know something” – as the hypernym for the meaning concerned with speaking. I hope you didn’t find this post missed the target, as it sometimes happens when one is trying to speak up in German!